In article <Pine.GSO.4.64.0809110111250.244@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Greg Smith <gsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > On Tue, 9 Sep 2008, Artacus wrote: >> Can psql access environmental variables or command line params? > $ cat test.sql > select :TEST as "input"; > $ psql -v TEST=16 -f test.sql > input > ------- > 16 > (1 row) Nice trick, but when I try the following variant: psql -v TEST=16 -c 'select :TEST as "input"' I get ERROR: syntax error at or near ":" LINE 1: select :TEST as "input" This seems to be contrary to the psql manual page: These assignments are done during a very early stage of start-up...